


The Starlight Regional (Even Trains Change Tracks)

by Anefi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek POV, M/M, Monster of the Week, Post-Battle, Pre-Slash, The Author Has Feelings About Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 08:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16573544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anefi/pseuds/Anefi
Summary: They killed the thing, at least, but not before it dragged his car to the bottom of Crater Lake and stranded them two hundred miles away from Beacon Hills. It's been a few years since Derek was on a train.





	The Starlight Regional (Even Trains Change Tracks)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Whispering_Sumire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/gifts).



> A/N: I wrote this two days ago, and since then, the town I Google mapped as their destination—Paradise, California, which I've used as the real-world stand-in for Beacon Hills since I started writing for this fandom—has been completely destroyed by fire. [Please consider donating, if you can.](https://www.redding.com/story/news/local/2018/11/09/camp-fire-how-you-can-help-victims/1942862002/)
> 
> ETA: Ana podficd this for me!!!!!!!!!!!!! Link is in the end notes :D

It was a first for Stiles, after a lifetime in the provincial wilderness, and the first time for Derek since New York. He hadn’t missed trains, exactly, with their lurching rhythm, plastic seats, and particular bavarois of decades of people from every walk of life being trapped together and mundanely bored, but they had a familiarity, now. There was a different kind of familiarity to the sight and smell and feel of Stiles in an unlikely sprawl against him and over a whole row of seats, and it had been jarring, at first, to hop the gap from the Klamath Falls station and glance back to find him hard on Derek’s heels, grinning at a novelty despite his tired edges, like he’d somehow managed to follow Derek two steps back into his memories. Like they could step off at the next stop and it would be Union Square, and they could get slices and jump the fence to walk the High Line alone, suspended in the dark patch of wildness between floating bubbles of windows and the neon street. They had a whole car to themselves, a rarity for the subway but, by his estimate, de rigueur for the Amtrack Coast Starlight through central California between nothing and nowhere in the longest stretch of the night. Stiles had spent the first fifteen minutes avidly absorbing every facet of the experiences, exploring their car like a wolf marking territory and watching the buildings slip by faster and faster, but once they’d slid out past the last light of the town to be swallowed by darkness, he’d settled in next to Derek like he belonged there. The dim half-lights of the passenger car were the brightest thing for miles, so their reflections in the opposite windows were undisturbed by so much as a streetlight as Derek took stock. The souvenir t-shirt itching around his collar had been an emergency purchase after the fight, but Stiles had escaped mostly unsinged. The last of the lingering cloud of smoke and terror started to fade as they slowly relaxed, though the rancid blue-green blood bleaching their jeans was still unfortunately pungent.

It was a learned reflex to drop his hearing down to human levels on boarding, so he almost missed it in the rattling of the train, when Stiles started to talk. “Sorry about the Toyota,” he said, tilting his head up so his shaggy hair swept against Derek’s chin. Derek leaned down just enough for his warm breath to skate over Stiles’s ear and make him shiver.

“No you’re not,” he murmured. Stiles choked back a laugh and leaned into him harder. Sometimes he showed affection like a cat.

“I’m really not. I hated that car. You know what I miss? That hotass Camaro.”

“You and me both,” Derek agreed. The Cruiser was meant to be a pack car, roomy and rugged and automatic, but everyone had fought to ride in the Camaro. He would’ve ended up teaching Erica how to drive clutch anyway, in another life. “I guess I could get a new one,” he said idly. “A Camaro would be better for long drives.”

“Dude, yes. After four hours in that soccer mom car, my ass was _numb_.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “Still better than your spare parts pile of a jeep.”

“You are lucky Roscoe isn’t here to hear you say that, asshole. After everything my baby has done for you? The ingratitude! Unbelievable.” It was a rote defense, and they both knew it. Derek let it slide. They’d been ranging farther and farther out for these excursions, and Roscoe had been quietly retired early on, after—well. A bad night. Stiles admitted afterward that whatever magic kept Roscoe in one piece seemed to fade outside the Beacon Hills city limits. Derek still wasn’t sure if he’d meant it literally.

He was tired. That was his only excuse. Tired but comfortable, tucked against Stiles, lulled by the rocking and clatter of the train. It just slipped out. “I wouldn’t mind going somewhere people aren’t dying suspiciously, one of these days.”

Stiles laughed, a little harshly. “Oh, yeah? You want a little vacation? See some sights? Get away from all the violence and murder and—”

Derek must have tensed unconsciously, hunched in on himself, because Stiles was shoving up, turning to face him.

“Wait, really?”

Derek twitched a shoulder, not quite a shrug. He couldn’t make himself look at Stiles, and he couldn’t make out Stiles’s expression in the window’s faint copy. “Don’t you?”

Stiles started to pick nervously at a fraying hole in his jeans where the blood had started eating through cotton. “I’d miss my late night monster hunting buddy,” he said. He probably meant it to come off as a joke. It didn’t.

Derek took a deep breath. He’d been brave enough to claw out the eyes of the fire spitter with acid blood in Crater Lake, a few hours ago. He was brave enough to do this. “There would be two seats,” he said.

Slowly, like a sunrise, Stiles started to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt from [Whispering_Sumire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire): Stiles gets Derek to open up and actually *talk* about things on a train-ride home from dealing with the monster of the week. They're the only ones on the train, covered in battle-grime, and maybe he's tired or something, bc he tells Stiles *everything*, and, then, like, passes out on Stiles' shoulder, and Stiles makes the executive decision not to wake him up until they're at the end of the line. Cue hitchhiking roadtrip/falling in love bc fuck BH after all it's done to them.
> 
> A/N: I managed the first part, at least! Hope you enjoyed it :)
> 
> Accepting more prompts on [tumblr](https://anefan.tumblr.com), or just come say hi

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Starlight Regional (Even Trains Change Tracks) (Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17178236) by [AiJamaisFacil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AiJamaisFacil/pseuds/AiJamaisFacil)




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